FSFE Newsletter - July 2011

Attack on Free Software and the GNU GPL

Imagine that you've just bought a computer with pre-installed Free Software. After
some time you decide to install additional software made by someone
else. The vendor that sold you your computer, however, does not approve, and decides to sue the people who made the additional software
that you installed. Sounds like purchasing a computer from that vendor was not such a great idea!

At the moment something very similar is happening in in Germany, in an important
GNU GPL violation case that the FSFE and gpl-violations.org are
participating. Germany company AVM maintains in court that others should not be allowed
to modify the software that comes pre-installed on their commercial computers and devices. It turns out, though, that this pre-installed software includes the Linux kernel, a piece of software distributed under the GNU GPL which guarantees exactly this freedom to users.

Through their actions, AVM is attacking the very foundations of Free Software: they
want to take away freedom from others. It will directly
contravene the legal rights of the original software authors, who decided that software freedom and cooperation is more
important to them than receiving license fees. If AVM is
successful in court it will be a disastrous move for the freedom of software on embedded
devices, mobile phones, network hardware and other Free
Software based products.

The judge did not make a decision during the June 21 court hearing, and participants in the case may still file further written pleas. On September 27 the court is set to either make a direct ruling on the case or choose to begin hearing evidence. The FSFE and gpl-violations.org have published a detailed report about
the case, and will continue to monitor the situation in defence of freedom for software users.

FSFE Internal: An era ends - others start

Usually you don't hear about the people who work behind the scenes for the
FSFE. Most of us are volunteers, and press and publicity
work is handled by people like FSFE president Karsten Gerloff, or your humble editor. But
without those volunteers who donate their spare time to promote software freedom the FSFE would not be what it is today. (Thank you!)

At the FSFE's June 11 General Assembly, which took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, FSFE's members elected Henrik Sandklef to be the organisation's Vice President.
A computer scientist and GNU Hacker from Gothenburg, Sweden, Henrik has
been active with the FSFE since 2005. He takes over from Fernanda Weiden,
who held the volunteer position for the past two years. The General
Assembly also confirmed Karsten Gerloff as FSFE's President and
Reinhard Müller as Finanical Officer.

While a new officer term cycle began, another era ended as Bernhard Reiter, FSFE co-founder, completed ten years as German coordinator and Deputy. He is the
first FSFE representative to continuously hold positions within the organisation for such a long time, and is the only person to have participated in every
FSFE annual General Assembly to date. Bernhard will remain active within the FSFE but has handed the official post of Deputy German Coordinator
to Torsten Grote.

The European Commission’s locked-in syndrome

It's official: The European Commission will migrate to Microsoft
Windows 7 without considering alternative solutions. In a reply to
questions asked by MEP Bart Staes (Greens/EFA), the European Commission
confirmed that it has awarded contracts for the 'upgrade' to Microsoft
and reseller Fujitsu-Siemens on behalf of 55 other European institutions
and the Commission itself. As Karsten explains in his
blog article on the issue, this move will drive the Comission into even greater
dependence on Microsoft.

And now for something completely different

Do you want your (future) children to work with Free Software in
school? Read the new Fellowship
Interview with Guido Arnold. Guido is coordinating the FSFE's education
team. He gives insights into the team's latest efforts at increasing
the use of Free Software in education.

Get active: Become an FSFE booth volunteer in Strasbourg

The FSFE will participate in the RMLL, one of France's biggest Free Software events, from July 9 to 14. In addition to having an information booth, the FSFE will also deliver presentations on Free Software: Karsten will talk about Centralised Internet Services and
Problems of Power (13.07., 15:20), France Coordinator Hugo Roy will talk about the battle fought by
Free Software for HTML5 online videos, and several other speakers have been invited to talk on topics concerning decentralisation of the Internet.

Like every booth and event we participate with, please contact today to volunteer if you are able. Help us to inform our audiences about Free Software!